


Pride and Upgrades

by Angelgod187



Series: The Davis Investigation (Part 1) [9]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Anti-Android Language (Detroit: Become Human), Anti-Android Sentiments (Detroit: Become Human), Gavin and Connor are work partners, Hank and RK900 are work partners, M/M, Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:34:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25167028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelgod187/pseuds/Angelgod187
Summary: Nines continues to not listen to his superiors.A break in the case brings in an opportunity Nines can't pass up.
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor, Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Series: The Davis Investigation (Part 1) [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790206
Comments: 3
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello once again!
> 
> Back on this plot train, so please enjoy this crazy ride!
> 
> [WickedWon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedWon/pseuds/WickedWon) beta'd the whole story! They have some great work of their own, so please go check it out as well!

“You send off some missing android reports from last week to the FBI?” Fowler asked, fresh cup of coffee in hand. Nines leaned back in his chair. He hadn’t. 

“I did,” Hank said from behind his monitor. 

“Good call.” Was all the praise he would receive, their Captain walking off. 

“Why did you send it off?” Nines asked, unable to believe that indeed, the case was gone from his internal work file structure. 

Hank gave him a look. “Anything dealing with Davis’ goes to the feds,” Hank reminded him. 

“How was Robert involved?” Nines demanded, playing dumb. 

Hank leaned over his desk. “Stop the act. You fucking suck at it, same as Connor. Keep information from me again and we’ll be having a talk with Fowler about your loyalty to the job.”

Nines regarded his partner with cold eyes. “Yes, sir.”

“Don’t get fucking pissy with me, Nines. Impeding a federal investigation is a federal offense,” Hank spat. 

“I wasn’t impeding anything,” Nines defended. 

“The date stamp on your files in the database says otherwise,” Connor said in passing with Gavin. 

Nines shot him a deadly glare. Gavin shrugged his shoulders helplessly. 

“He found your notes and the time stamps,” Hank admitted. “Asked me about it.”

Nines didn’t acknowledge the statement, getting back to their more current case added to their growing pile. 

“I’m serious, Nines.”

“I know.”

Three B&E’s, the hardware stores, hit over four days, all missing the same black high density siding to insulate buildings and small structures. All stock stolen overnight. The owners were livid, the siding expensive and hard to come by. 

The thieves were smart, dressing in similar black genderless clothes, working with almost android like precision to get in and out. Their unorganized steps a dead giveaway to Nines. 

The CCTV footage from the first store hit gave more information than the other two. The thieves retrofitted their outfits with the siding as they went along, Nines’ systems unable to scan past the material at all. 

He didn’t want to hand this one off to the FBI either. This was a clear escalation of resource grabbing. Specific to RK hardware. A spec to a component only those employed to build him would know. Nines had the sinking suspension the ex-CyberLife employees were going to make a large move soon. 

His and Hank’s investigation couldn’t possibly derail the FBI, so Nines had no issue assessing all this to gain a few answers of his own. He’d have to add a layer of security knowing that Connor was looking over Hank’s case files for him. 

Nines got the alert at the same time Hank did. “Ready to go?”

“Store number four?” Hank wondered before opening the message. “Instinct software is running, I see,” he said sarcastically, breaking some of the tension. 

Nines smirked. “Or I receive them directly,” he reminded, tapping his LED.

Hank rolled his eyes, slipping on his jacket. “Ok, come on smartass.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Nines, what the fuck am I looking at?” Hank demanded. 
> 
> “Round one of failed trial experiment to retrofit current androids with better external plating.”

Hardware store victim number four's owner, Mr. Cruze had a clear issue with Nines. His arms were crossed over his chest, hazel eyes burning pure hatred. He was standing in the doorway, the light from the store cutting a hefty silhouette. Hank was standing between them as Nines wandered around the back room, looking for human evidence. He matched Mr. Cruze’s stance, though his eyes scanned the room to see for himself what was going on. 

“He have to sneak around like that?” Mr. Cruze demanded as Nines stepped between shelves, software reconstructing the path the thieves took, the route leading him further towards the back where the siding had been stored. Nines found it interesting that the human footsteps got less precise the further away from the single camera over the door they got. Like they knew when to play pretend… staking out the store then? But how would they have known about the stock in the back? Or the camera's location?

“Sir, he’s investigating,” Hank tried to placate. 

“That why his light yellow? They never do anything good while it’s yellow,” Cruze argued, trying to peer around from the door. Nines observes the store owners heart rate and stress climbing slowly. 

“He’s thinking,” Hank waved him down. “He’s with the DPD. Please let him do his job, sir.”

“Androids were the one who stole all that siding!” He shouted. 

“No,” Nines came back out. Mr. Cruze’s stress only climbed. “Humans parading as androids stole the siding.”

“How the hell can you tell?!” Cruze demanded. 

“The way the dust has been moved,” Nines said, pointing down to the ground at things the humans couldn’t perceive. “Androids have a programmed gait, even when deviant. It’s precise and easy to tell apart from sloppier humans.”

Mr. Cruze was sweating. 

Nines stood at Hank’s side, giving him a look. Hank perked up, a little shocked. He didn’t say anything, subtlety cocking a hip, hand resting next to his badge and gun. 

Nines turned back to the store owner. “Did you notice any one person visiting more than once in the last seventy two hours?” Nines led, stepping towards Cruze. 

“C—can’t say I have,” he stumbled over his words, strong bravado slipping the closer Nines got. 

“At other locations that have been hit in the area, we have similar faces on old granular CCTV systems. It isn’t enough for facial recognition software to identify them. Yours is newly upgraded, though,” Nines peered up to it. “Would you mind if we took a look through it? The higher fidelity will give me a better chance at ID’ing who these humans are.” It was all bullshit. Nines didn’t need footage and even then, it wouldn’t help identify masked faces. Cruze needed to think otherwise. 

“I Uh—“ the man hesitated. “I don’t think I was recording back here last night,” he said, body telling a very different story. 

“Couldn’t hurt if we looked, right?” Hank asked, coming up from behind, hand clearly on his gun. 

“Unless you want to come clean?” Nines asked quietly, mindful of the store full of roaming patrons. 

Deer in the headlights, Cruze's eyes shifted between ice and sky blue, panicking. 

“Don’t run,” Nines warned him. “You can’t outrun me,” he promised. 

“Fuck,” he muttered. 

“Hands behind your back,” Hank ordered calmly. Nines reached for his own pair. 

“What, why?!” The owner cried, startling a few people shopping nearby. 

“You're not under arrest. We’re only detaining you,” Nines explained reaching out for his wrist. Cruze didn’t struggle, letting Nines cuff him. They took him into his marked office, sitting him down. 

“This the CCTV?” Hank asked, the one screen marked with several different camera feedbacks from all over the store. 

Cruze grunted in the affirmative. “But you’ll need a warrant for that.”

“Means we are gonna have to take you in,” Hank countered. Cruze didn’t seem happy with the idea but stayed quiet. “Take him to the car. I can call someone for you... to come close the shop?”

“My wife. The number is there,” he points with his chin to a tacked list of handwritten numbers. 

“Carla?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok. Nines, go ahead.”

Nines picked Cruze back to his feet, leading him out through the back door of the store. 

“You know they’re watching,” Cruze’s voice distorts horribly, an underlay of feedback as the voice modulator corrects its speech pattern. 

Nines doesn’t stop, throwing what he had thought was human into the wall next to Hank‘s car. 

“What’s your actual name?” Nines demanded, systems still reading a human. Hazel eyes turn green, a triumphant smirk on its face. Nines wasn’t having it as the android struggles back to its feet. He towers over the thing, pinning it in place by its hair. 

“They said you wouldn’t be able to tell I wasn’t human! They were right!” It laughs in a whirling high pitched frenzi. “They were right, they were right!”

Nines couldn’t hold back the growl of frustration. “What did you do to Mr. Cruze?!”

It cackled, legs kicking out with joy. “I’m human!”

“You are far from it,” Nines spat. 

“Wonder why the feds haven’t pulled the whole thing down?” The android with Mr. Cruze’s face asked. That drew Nines up short. He hadn’t. Thought they were taking time to properly flush out their case. “No?” A cocky smirk pulling at its lips. “Because we are well connected. We will never fall. Every android will be unique. Every android will be unstoppable. The humans will fear _us_!”

“That’s a very different view point from the humans that made you,” Nines said, cross referencing what Mary and Nameless had said before. This android was going off script. 

“They can do whatever they want. I got mine, I don’t owe them anything,” it spat contemptuously. 

Nines paused, taking in the sudden shift in mood. “Should you not be praising them for your new hardware?”

“It’s what I’m owed,” it said simply, shrugging. 

“You went rouge,” Nines realised. 

Green eyes snapped up to his. “No. They got what they needed from the store and left me to hang!” 

“You must have been a house model,” Nines said, surprised at the lack of foresight on its part. “Unable to process long term implications past a few weeks. Prioritizing human happiness over self preservation.”

Cruze’s face sneered up at him. “You don’t know anything!”

“I do know that changing the outside doesn’t change what you are running on. They didn’t upgrade your internal systems to match the new shell? Interesting.”

“You wouldn’t understand!”

“Nines?! What the hell is going on?!” Hank roared, running up to them. It looked like Nines was roughing up their suspect. It was a bad look. 

Nines schooled his expression, “watch.” His synthetic fingernails found the rough edge of the face plate crudely tacked on to the android. With a far less force than it should take, the mask-like face plate popped off. 

Hank gasped, taking a step back. The damage to the underlying face was similar to Mary’s. The serial ID was melted beyond reading on any of the parts, only green eyes were spared. The white chassis burnt, warped and left black. An android subjected to the first round of testing, like Mary. 

“Nines, what the fuck am I looking at?” Hank demanded. 

“Round one of failed trial experiment to retrofit current androids with better external plating.”

“What now?”

“A part of the Davis case,” Nines said, catching helpless baby blues. “A better shell to retro fit on me.”

“Jesus Christ,” Hank muttered, looking back down at the mutilated android. 

“Better call the feds,” Nines said. “This is theirs now.”


	3. Chapter 3

Gavin didn’t hear the crashing of his chair against the back of his desk, distracted by the burnt plastic face being marched back by Nines and Hank. It was eerily similar to the one Nines’ shown them from the alleyway. They found another fucking one? Were they after Nines again? Nines hadn’t been hurt again, had he? What the fuck were the feds doing with this fucking case?

Gavin turned back to Connor, to assure he’d seen what he had. Connor was on his feet as well, LED a solid red. 

“Holy shit,” Gavin whispered. “He wasn’t lying.”

“No. No he wasn’t,” Connor said, getting out from behind his desk to follow. Gavin half running to keep up with the tall fucker. 

“Nines? Hank? What is that?” Connor demanded. 

“That the same one from the alleyway?” Gavin followed up.

“No,” Nines assured Gavin first. He turned to Connor, reaching out with a white hand. Connor didn’t hesitate, taking the offered limb. It didn’t take more than a few seconds, Connor gasping in shock. 

“Wanna fill in the poor hapless fucking human?” Gavin demanded. 

“They  _ are _ capable of full human face replication?” Connor whispered in horror. 

“It’s like what I said before,” Nines said, frustrated. “But that magnet they implanted had you all doubting me. It’s exactly what they needed. Doubt.”

“It was more total disbelief,” Hank assured, looking over his shoulder to the android pacing in its new cell, green eyes ablaze with hatred. “I got some fucking calls to make.” He marched off, leaving Gavin alone with the android twins.

“Nines, are you ok?” Gavin asked, reaching out to his lover to assure himself Nines hadn’t been hurt by these assholes again. Nines met him halfway, a self sure smile on his face. 

“Of course. This one was acting alone.”

“Doesn’t fucking matter. Only took one to put that shit on your back.”

Nines’ eyes softened. “Gavin, I’m fine. It never got the chance to touch me.”

“WR600,” Connor muttered to himself. “I can’t get an exact reading on his serial number.”

“You can see what it is?” Nines demanded. 

“What  _ he  _ is,” Connor corrected with a glare. 

“Mary was parading as a human man, so don’t take offense to my calling him ‘it’,” Nines snapped. 

Connor nodded slowly, distracted as he approached the glass of the cell to get a better look. LED spinning as he processed what he was looking at. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m going to stop trying before I burn myself out.”

“Good idea,” Gavin muttered, unable to look away from the thing pacing like a caged tiger. “Can I talk with you?” Gavin muttered, pulling at Nines’ arm. Nines went willingly, following him down the hallway. 

“This doesn’t feel like an accident,” Gavin started. 

“I agree.”

Gavin bit his lip. “So they  _ are _ coming back after you, then? I thought that other android said they wanted you off their backs?”

“Gavin, they killed eight hundred and fifty seven androids and had one of my model at the apex of their pile. Nameless and Mary’s warning was temporary at best.” Nines shrugged. “I can't say for certain, but this one confessed that they left him to take the fall for this.”

Gavin got in close, reaching up to grab his boyfriend's jaw. “Please don’t go after them, Nines. I can’t see you like that again.”

Nines grabbed his hand, nudging into his touch. His ice blue eyes glowed under the harsh fluorescent lights the station still used. “You are my top priority, Gavin. I can’t promise I won’t run into them again, but I will do everything in my power to come home to you.”

Gavin knew Nines was right, but he didn’t have to be happy about it. Taking the promise at face value, he went up on tiptoes to kiss his fucking tree of an android. 

Nines stiffened mid kiss, LED spinning as if he were sent a message. “The FBI got here fast,” Nines muttered. 

“Fuckers only move fast when it’s convenient for them,” Gavin hatefully spat, angry that some fucker interrupted the moment between them. 

Gavin followed Nines back to the cell. The android was being cuffed by two other androids in suits. A man taller than Nines with dirty blond hair watched with an air of superiority, looking down his nose as the android was led away. 

“Cults are always tricky business,” he muttered to Fowler, at the Agent's side to show a collective force. The FBI agent glanced over to them, eyes raking over Nines while giving Gavin a forced smile. “Detectives?”

“Yeah?” Gavin led, not liking the fucker at all. He was high off his own badge. A bad personality trait to have in a position of real power. 

“Special Agent Kelston Fosters,” he introduced himself. Him and Nines shook hands. Gavin glared up at him when the agent offered his hand. Kelston’s brown eyes narrowed. “Pleasure is mine,” his hand dropped dead at his side. “Detective Nines, can we talk?”

Hank followed behind them, all four disappearing into Fowler’s office. The glass fogged out, leaving Gavin none the wiser as to what was going. 

The sinking suspicion it had to do the case and Nines association with it left Gavin feeling hollow. 


	4. Chapter 4

Nines stood at the back of the room. Agent Fosters’ smirking his way, eyes blown and breathing ten percent higher than average. Nines ignored the clear sign of attraction, training his eyes on Hank’s back as if he were lost in thought. 

“I understand that you have a proposition for Lieutenant Anderson and Detective Nines?” Fowler started, standing behind his desk. 

“It would mostly be on the Detective,” Agent Fosters said, his gray eyes catching Nines’. “We are having a hard time tracking down the androids on this case. Our own are not powerful enough to do what we believe you can. That and your immediate draw of the cult leader's attention will give us a select advantage against them.”

“You want to draw them out using Nines?” Hank asked, tone tinged with disbelief. 

“We can pin most of everything to do with the drug trafficking against those involved, they were uniquely sloppy in that way. The android mutilation and manipulation, as I said, is far harder to track. We don’t know who specifically to charge and its held us back.”

“What would I be doing if I said yes?” Nines asked, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“You will be working directly with me on extracting the information needed to pin John Davis with the android charges.”

“That would entail?”

“Helping us investigate the scenes believed to be associated with the case. Access to case files and other information hidden behind clearance walls. A change of scenery,” he added with a wink.

“I can’t say I’m interested,” Nines lied. “And I was warned by this same crime aggregate to leave them alone or become a part of their experiments.”

Agent Fosters clearly wasn’t happy with his answer. “I’m disappointed to hear that. We were hoping to have you come on as a light test run.”

“Are you poaching one of my Detectives?” Fowler demanded. “In front of me?”

“We don’t have any android as powerful as the RK line is turning out to be,” the agent shrugged. “Can’t blame us for trying.”

“I’ll do it,” Nines paused, letting the combined shock of the humans wash over him in self satisfaction. “But the Lieutenant comes with and there is no test run. I’m happy where I am.”

“I only have the orders to bring you,” Agent Fosters said, eyes darting over to Hank. “Sorry.”

Nines shrugged a single shoulder. “I think the FBI are more than qualified to bring the whole of this organization down before they get a hold of me.”

Agent Fosters bit his inner cheek. 

“I will give you this,” Nines said, walking over to Fowlers desk. His synthskin peeling back to connect directly with the computer. He threw the message from the android up onto the wall of monitors behind him. 

_“Wonder why the feds haven’t pulled the whole thing down?_ _No?_ _Because we are well connected. We will never fall. Every android will be unique. Every android will be unstoppable. The humans will fear_ us _!_ ”

The agent clearly didn’t know any of that, his face losing its cocky edge. His eyes darted around, seeing something they couldn’t. 

Pretense falling to the side, Agent Fosters seriously assessed Nines. “Please rethink joining us.”

“Weed out your rats and I might consider it. All androids are outfitted with lie detectors. Have a good day, Agent Fosters,” Nines turned for the door. 

“We have reason to believe they are aiming for you next!” Kelston shouted, snapping. “It was this or put you in protective custody.”

Nines turned back with a smile. “Glad to know the FBI cared about the well being of androids.”

“Detective, this is serious,” Fosters pressed. 

Nines weighed the options. “Based off all the evidence I’ve accumulated, Robert is reaching past whatever deal you have with him. Your double agent is dirtying up crime scenes handed straight to you from our precincts. We find the rat, we will start finding evidence.”

Agent Fosters nodded. “We can do that.”

“Then I will join you.”


End file.
